Although internet offers excellent opportunities as in the case of Second Life, internet is also under scrutiny because of the common occurrences of copyright infringements such as file sharing, information hacking and reprographic technologies (Oettinger cited in Jensen, 2004: 531). Relevant authorities had attempted to deal with copyright infringements by inflicting legal consequences to the conduct of copyright infringements through regulations such as Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) (Jensen, 2004: 538). Internet communication developers had also acted by developing softwares to prevent hacking and expelling users who had conducted copyright infringements. Regardless of these attempts, the number of copyright infringements is still increasing (Jensen, 2004: 539). Hackers always find ways around the barricades created by authorities and internet communication developers. As previously described in the case of Everquest, despite of Sony’s legally binding statement, Everquest users continue to trade characters and items in the game using real currency (Humphreys, 2005: 44). These trades are difficult to tract as they are generally unofficial, unsolicited and unrecorded. Users may also face disadvantages in this matter. Because of the nature of the transaction, one party may suffer from unfairness as the other party could break the trade agreement and get away without facing legal consequences.
In the case of Second Life, Linden Lab may have officially recognised the intellectual property rights of the users over objects that they have created, but this does not imply that the intellectual property rights of users are fully transferable to the world outside Second Life. In its terms of services, Linden Lab clearly stated that it would perform any measurable actions but could not guarantee legal penalties over violations of intellectual property rights in Second Life:
“Linden Lab’s acknowledgement hereunder of your intellectual property rights in your Content does not constitute a legal opinion or legal advice, but is intended solely as an expression of Linden Lab’s intention not to require users of the Service to forego certain intellectual property rights with respect to Content they create using the Service, subject to the terms of this Agreement”
Should the users choose to file legal claims, they have to do so under DMCA but Linden Lab could not guarantee that the violators will be legally penalised. Further in the terms and services statement, Linden Lab also stated that regardless of the user’s intellectual property rights, Linden Lab has the right to remove, alter or transfer any data in Second Life including objects created by users for any reason in Linden Lab’s sole discretion. As a result, the intellectual property rights of Second Life users may be enforceable strictly in the virtual environment of Second Life as they are proven difficult to exercise in the non-virtual world.
An instance of intellectual property rights violation in Second Life is the case of CopyBot. CopyBot is a program available for users to access in the library of the linden lab (Cory Linden, 2006). The program was originally intended to recover objects that had been missing or accidentally deleted by Linden Lab. Some hackers manipulated the codes of the program and converted the program so that the program could copy any objects in Second Life. CopyBot caused a major outcry in Second Life with users protesting against Linden Lab for being slow in their response to the CopyBot case (Robin Linden, 2006). Second Life users also flooded Second Life forums with complaints and demands for Linden Lab to take action against CopyBot. Linden Lab finally released a statement that that the use of CopyBot is considered a violation of Linden Lab’s terms of services (Cory Linden, 2006). In the statement, Linden Lab representative also emphasized that Linden Lab is not in the “copyright enforcement business” (Cory Linden, 2006). Furthermore, Cory Linden argued “like the world wide web, it will never be possible to prevent data that is drawn on your screen from being copied”. The CopyBot scandal reflects the difficulty of enforcing intellectual property rights in the virtual world the way it is implemented outside the virtual world (2006).
